Watch The Wild Bunch

The Wild Bunch is an American Western about aging outlaws who attempt to exist in the fast changing world of the early 20th century. The movie is directed by film veteran Sam Peckinpah. William Holden plays Pike Bishop, an aging Western outlaw living near the Texas-Mexican border in 1913. Ready to retire, Bishop decides to go out with a bang by robbing a rail office contain a large cache of silver. However, things go horribly wrong when Bishop's gang is ambushed by his former partner, Deke Thorton, portrayed by Robert Ryan. A violent gun battle kills many civilians and most of Bishop's gang.

Bishop heads to Mexico with the remainder of his gang, including Dutch Engstrom (Ernest Borgnine), Lyle and Tector Gorch (Warren Oates and Ben Johnson), Angel (Jamie Sanchez), and Freddie Sykes (Edmond O'Brien). While in the city of Agua Verde, Bishop and his gang meet up with a general in the Mexican Federal Army named Mapache and decide to work with him to steal a shipment of weapons from a U.S. Army train in exchange for a cache of gold coins.

Though the raid is successful, what follows is one disaster after another for Bishop and his gang. First, Thorton's posse shows up and chases his gang back to the border. This is followed by Angel's eventual capture and torture by General Mapache when he finds out Angel traded his share of gold for a crate of arms to be shipped out to those fighting against the general. The climax of the movie is a showdown between Bishop's gang and Mapache's men for the life of Angel.

The Wild Bunch was written by Sam Peckinpah and Walton Green. The movie was released by Warner Brothers-Seven Arts and premiered in July of 1969.